Joint and Several Liability

Joint and several liability is a rule of tort law under which each defendant who is found liable for a plaintiff's injury can be held responsible for the entire amount of damages, regardless of the percentage of fault attributed to that defendant. The plaintiff may collect the full judgment from any single defendant or from a combination of defendants, giving the plaintiff maximum assurance of recovery.

The doctrine applies when two or more tortfeasors cause an indivisible injury — that is, when the harm cannot be apportioned among the defendants based on their individual contributions. Classic examples include concurrent tortfeasors whose negligent acts combine to produce a single harm (such as two drivers whose negligence causes a collision injuring a pedestrian) and defendants acting in concert to commit a tort. When the injury is indivisible, it would be unjust to force the plaintiff to bear the risk that one defendant is judgment-proof.

Among themselves, defendants who are jointly and severally liable have rights of contribution and indemnity. A defendant who pays more than their proportionate share of the judgment can seek contribution from other liable defendants. Some jurisdictions allow contribution based on pro rata shares (dividing equally among defendants), while others use comparative fault principles to allocate shares based on relative culpability.

Many jurisdictions have modified or abolished joint and several liability through tort reform statutes. Some states have replaced it with several-only liability, under which each defendant pays only their proportionate share of fault. Others retain joint and several liability but only for defendants above a certain fault threshold. These reforms reflect a policy debate between protecting plaintiffs' ability to recover fully and shielding marginally culpable defendants from disproportionate liability.